How to Bid on a Lawn Maintenance Job
Lawn care and landscaping companies looking to expand their business often turn to the stability and dollars offered by organizations with large tracts of land. But landing big jobs often requires winning a bidding war. The key to bidding on a lawn maintenance job, whether it's a contract for multiple apartment complexes or a contract to mow the yard of a single homeowner, lies in identifying what costs are involved in doing the work. Once you have a break-even dollar figure, you know how low you can bid while still putting money in your pocket. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Examine the potential client's request for a quote or the paperwork announcing the open bid. Determine whether your business meets the requirements for the bid. For example, potential clients may want bidders to show proof of a certain amount of liability insurance. If you don't meet the requirement, it may not be worth your time to quote the job.
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Call the contact number on the bid and ask to survey the site yourself. Rely on your own measurements and judgments rather than the customer's estimated square footage. Jot down notes about any unique features or requirements of the site, such as sidewalks, trees, bodies of water or large mulched areas.
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Study the size and unique properties of the surveyed site and determine the amount of equipment, time and manpower needed to perform lawn maintenance on the area. A large field can be mowed by a single person with a mower, but large sloped and landscaped lawns man need a larger team to complete the task on a timely basis. Break the maintenance task down into individual jobs -- fertilizing, mulching, mowing, trimming, etc. -- to help visualize the effort needed.
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Calculate the cost of maintaining the lawn. If you're in the position to bid on lawn maintenance jobs, you probably already have a minimum dollar value you need to earn per square foot or per hour to meet your various costs, such as equipment, gas, labor and taxes. Remember to add travel time to the mix if the site isn't near any other customers.
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Add your desired profit to the final calculated cost of maintaining the lawn to determine your quote price for the site. Some lawn care businesses may already include a profit figure in their hourly or square-footage rates, and as such the profit margin would already be built into your calculations.
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Multiply the cost of a single cutting out over the growth season if the customer wants a bid on seasonal maintenance rather than a per-cut quote. Identify how many weeks fall in the growing season -- which can start sometime in the spring and last until sometime in the fall, depending on your area -- and divide that number by how often you need to visit the site. That number is approximately how many times you'll need to visit the site in one season. Multiply the number of visits and the cost of a single cutting together to determine a seasonal quote.
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Create a typed, written proposal for the site. Include your business contact information, the address of the evaluated site, your bid for the lawn maintenance job and any other information the potential client requires, such as proof of insurance. Compile the information in a large, flat envelope and mail or hand-deliver the quote to the customer.
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Tips & Warnings
The "Your Lawn Care Basics Coach" website cautions that bids for large, open areas such as schools or waste facilities often go to the lowest bidder, and as such entail lower profit rates than residential lawns. Tailor your profit expectations accordingly.
References
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